About Ken

 From Board Room to Forge Room From a demanding daily 3-hour commute to and from Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. to walking out into my backyard to get to work, my career life has changed dramatically since moving to the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in 2006. I have traded-in a view of the U.S. Capitol for a mountain landscape - complete with cattle and an occasional elk.
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My Knife Making Journey

 Forging a New Life in Steel When Ken left Washington, D.C., he also left behind the weight of boardrooms and policy briefings. Once the director of an engineering and security program for a trade association in the energy industry, Ken had spent years under the figurative “heat and pressure” of regulation and industry oversight. During that time, he was riding the commuter train into the District each day, passing the time by reading books on the art of knife forging. “I thought about building a forge back then,” he recalls, “but it seemed impossible with the little leisure time I had.”“Today,” he says with a quiet smile, “the heat and pressure I operate under isn’t focused on industry policy—but on each bar of 1,500-degree steel I heat, hammer, and shape.”That transformation—from corporate director to bladesmith—wasn’t a leap, but a gradual forging of passion through fire and patience. After relocating to rural Western North Carolina, Ken’s journey into knife making began in 2008, when he attended the American Bladesmith Society (ABS) Smoky Mountain Hammer-In at Haywood Community College in Clyde, North Carolina. Ken finally had the space—and the quiet—to pursue what had long captured his imagination. At that Hammer-In, surrounded by the sound of hammers striking steel, he forged his first knife. “That was it,” he says. “From the moment I quenched that blade, I was ready to begin the journey.”
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American Bladesmith Society

 What followed was years of study, experimentation, and dedication. In June of 2012, Ken earned his Journeyman Smith rating from the American Bladesmith Society—a prestigious milestone marking both skill and commitment to the craft. Following that achievement, in 2026, Ken was juried into the Southern Highland Craft Guild, an organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and celebrating fine Appalachian craftsmanship, representing master artisans from across the Southern Highlands since 1930. Today, his knives are known for their balance of artistry and function, each one a reflection of the maker’s engineering mind and craftsman’s heart. Forged from high-carbon steels and often adorned with intricate Damascus patterns, his blades have found their way into the pockets of mountain folk in North Carolina, kitchens in California, the green fields of Great Britain, the alpine trails of Switzerland, and even display cases in Asia. As a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild and an active contributor to the bladesmithing community, Ken has helped develop ABS courses and Hammer-Ins at Haywood Community College, teaching the next generation of smiths the fundamentals of forging, leatherwork, and knife construction. His work has been featured in Blade Magazine, Knives Illustrated, and Our State Magazine’s “Meet the Maker” series, and he appeared on The History Channel’s Forged in Fire in 2018. Yet despite the recognition, Ken’s rewards aren’t measured in prestige or profit. “The satisfaction comes from creating something honest,” he says. “A knife that’s meant to be used, admired, and handed down. It’s about the simple joy of shaping something real from raw steel.”Each year, Ken exhibits his work at Highland Games and craft fairs across the Southeast, from Grandfather Mountain to Charleston, where his blades stand as both tools and tributes to a timeless art form. In a world that often moves too fast, Ken’s forge burns steady—a place where heat, patience, and purpose meet, and where every finished blade carries a spark of the maker’s own story. For Ken, bladesmithing is more than craft—it’s legacy forged in fire.
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